Drinking wine makes you brainier, according to the latest research - and going on the wagon makes you stupider, at least in the case of women.
The news comes in a new study carried out by boffins in Scandinavia. Some 5,033 Norwegians were followed over some seven years in which both their alcohol consumption and cognitive …

Thanks ...

*Sigh*

Did you even read the article? The word "moderate" is used four times and there's plenty of other evidence that *moderate* wine intake is more beneficial than damaging. Having a glass of wine in the evening is not going to cause your liver to fail.

Going out three times a week and drinking 1/2 bottle of Tequila on the other hand (speaking from experience) will likely have a bad effect on you.

What good is a liver

Noms

Social aspect?

Is that due to the social nature of drinking? Is simply spending time relaxing with close friends far more conducive to a sane state of mind than going home, tee-total, spending all night writing comment on websites...oh wait a minute...

Title

Who's Mick

Seeing is believing

@ *Sigh*

Funny, I didn't see anywhere in that article that it's been proven that 1/2 bottle of Tequila 3 times a week will have a bad effect.

Then again, I didn't read anywhere in the article that they had a control group that was drinking grape juice instead of wine or total abstinence from grape fortified beverages, so it seems a bit premature to me to conclude one way or the other about the alcohol in the beverage.

I *think* you were joking

But the claim that alcohol kills brain cells has no scientific basis and the idea likely originated from advocates of the Temperance Movement: http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/HealthIssues/1103162109.html

great

The ascendancy of the chavettes is surely nigh!

Romford on a saturday night should therefore be the centre of our academic universe as coupled with this article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7951363/Contraceptive-pill-increases-brain-size-and-function.html which implies anyone "going equipped" for a quickie is additionally smart, we should be leading the world.

This is what I want to hear

Evidence based policy fallacy

"Presumably that's authoritative enough for anyone, and the present swingeing taxes on booze in the UK - with their devastating effects on the nation's health, intelligence, economic viability etc - will now cease"

Ah Lewis, perhaps you need to imbibe a little more, for that is not how the UK makes policy on psychoactive substances. For the record, here is the policy making process in it's entirety :

while(1) {

Read_Daily_Mail(); *

Formulate_Policy(); *

}

If it were otherwise, how is it that we keep hearing policy makers banging on about how Britain's town centres have become "no go areas" at weekends due to alcohol ? I mean, I've been into my town centre on a weekend, and it appears that quite literally thousands of people do in fact go there and that this is actually _because_ of alcohol, without which there would be no one there at all, because all the pubs would be shut.

* Sharp eyed observers will note that the same trivial bits of NLP and Markov chaining encapsulated here can replace not only the entire policy making infrastructure but also the Daily Mail itself. Sharp eyed observers with tin foil hats may already suspect that several Daily Mail columnists have been coded thus for some time now.

Smart, educated people tend to drink wine, you say?

Self selecting set

Presumably they didn't select people at random, and somehow force them to drink (or not drink) varying quantities of different alcoholic beverages?

That's why it is an association, not a causal link. Could well be that more intelligent people prefer wine to beer. Or that being a bit thick helps you cope with lfe's pressures without hitting the bottle. Doesn't mean the alcohol made them more or less intelligent.

In any case, it is only an association between what these people SAY they drink and their intelligence. Saying you drink the odd glass of wine sounds better that saying you abstain (anti-social wierdo), or saying that you swill down pints of white cider with a takeaway every night.

Correlation versus Causation

AC presumably is Alcoholic Classism in this instance

"Now the middle class alcoholics have another excuse to sink some wine and neglect their kids. Besides, they haven't got a problem because they're *middle class*."

Wow, how heavily do you stoop with that chip on your shoulder? Do you even understand the concept of alcoholism? You do realise that functioning alcoholics hold down jobs but still need to balance their drinking with their family life in pretty much all cases neglecting their children. Alcoholics are usually pretty selfish about things like other people, so where exactly does class come into it? Are you saying that working class alcoholics don't neglect their children? Or perhaps that the alcoholic aristocracy treat their families right? What a load of twaddle, no wonder you won't post your name.

Swingeing taxes on booze in UK tax?

Interesting the study was carried out using Norwegians - they have one of the highest levels of taxation on all alcohol, so they can probably only afford to drink modestly anyway, plus they are probably better off folk as well. Last time I was there a bottle of wine cost over £40 in a modest hotel.

Did they correct

For the effects of pregnancy?

Not meaning to be a sexist here, but several women I know who have had children, by their own admission, feel ditzier after their pregnancy. probably something do to with the unborn child drawing nutrition from the mother's body.

At the same time, pregnant women are advised to not drink alcohol, so it doesn't take a great stretch of the imagination to suggest that at least some of those women in the study who gave up alcohol did so because of pregnancy.

If they didn't correct for this effect, it could also account for the gender bias in the results. I doubt the basic neurochemistry of men and women differs that much, if at all.

Survival of the fittest......

I've been saying this for years, it’s down to simple deduction.

Everyone knows drinking kills brain cells, everyone also knows that in nature its down to survival of the fittest, so effectively drinking is killing off the weak brain cells making room for the new brain cells that have the potential to be much harder working than the previous occupant of the area of brain matter.

Wasters want to get wasted.

In a nation of binge drinkers, let them kill themselves off. We will live in a democracy if they want ot drink themselves to death go for it we live in exciting times, Where pedo files can roam the street, criminals can menace law abiding citizens with no fear of justice. We have a great welfare system that promotes and payfor these types of life styles! why get a job when you can stay ont he dole, get pissed have kids(a result of drunken fornication) and get a free house.

Pedo what now ?

This report was clearly written by a sober woman.

"Moderate wine consumption was independently associated with better performance on all cognitive tests in both men and women. [...] Alcohol abstention was associated with lower cognitive performance in women."

So drinking wine makes men and women smarter, but abstention only makes women thicker?

Title? What title?

amanfrommars? Is that you? Do you have a new (slightly more intoxicated) alter ego?

If not I must demand that someone goes to mars and asks him what he thinks he is doing! I miss the old fella, it's been ages since I've read his mad droolings.

Anyway, of course alcohol makes you smarter, just nobody understands you due to the way it affects your vocal chords. Then you've forgotten all the clever junk you came up by morning due to the hangover that makes you stupid again.

The one with the label saying "Made in Mars" and the bottle of Scotch in the pocket, please good sir.

Wine, but not beer?

The true danger of alcohol

This is why I never touch the stuff. I'm already so damn brilliant that alcohol would no doubt elevate my intelligence to a superhuman level, leaving me with no rational choice but to take on the tiresome job of ruling the world.